


The Balance of the Force

by Darth_Cannizard



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Darth Tantrum and his Evil Space Ginger, Execution, Implied Mpreg, M/M, Post-TLJ, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 08:33:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13454445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darth_Cannizard/pseuds/Darth_Cannizard
Summary: What is the nature of good and evil? Leia's POV





	The Balance of the Force

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Atlantia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atlantia/gifts), [Geishacomb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geishacomb/gifts).
  * A translation of [Das Gleichgewicht der Macht](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13420800) by [Darth_Cannizard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darth_Cannizard/pseuds/Darth_Cannizard). 
  * Inspired by [Their Parents' War](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13378506) by [Atlantia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atlantia/pseuds/Atlantia). 



> There are a lot of fics where the good wins and where General Armitage Elan Hux (a deep bow to hollycomb) is incarcerated or executed. I have read a lot of fics of this sort and every one of them makes me really sad and depressive.  
> I’m a daydreamer and if time allows it I tell stories to myself, but I seldom write them down, which really is a pity. So I found this incredible story “Their Parent’s War” by Atlantia and it grasped my heart so painful and hard, I had to sit down and write a conclusion to it, but a happy one. You should read her fic first to understand everything in mine. And there was also a trilogy, the title was “Brightly Burning”? In the second installment of it Hux is sentenced to death through immolation and no other form of fulfilling the death penalty is in my opinion more gruesome and terrible and moves me so in-depth as this (maybe it’s a reincarnation thing and I was burned at the stake a few hundred years ago, who knows ;) Ren has a redemption arc in this last story and this is really not my thing. TLJ states clearly he doesn’t want to be redeemed, so we should respect his wish *grinning*
> 
> My story begins right where Atlantia left off.

The Balance of the Force

 

There is a last, long lasting look between Leia and Hux before he is taken away to the place of execution.

 

And Leia has doubts. Not in the ideological sense, because Hux has to pay for his terrible crimes, that is without doubt, but the question of how he will be executed – through immolation at the stake – is simply put...barbaric and brutish. It casts darkness on the political pureness of the Republic and it cannot be reconciled with ideals Leia has been believing in her whole life, not only as a politician, but also as a private person.

 

She can hear the footsteps of the condemned and the guards for a while longer and then no more. But what she still hears in the distance is the murmur of gathered people, which came together to watch justice being done...and they will watch with righteous glee and content. Tomorrow the press will meticulously describe and dwell on every tiniest flinch of pain on Hux’s face and on each scream he made, of the halo of fire around his head and the flames consuming his slender body. The press will comment the reaction of the mob: horrified and in the same moment filled with pleasure, this too will be described and also commented without an ounce of mercy and in every gory detail.

 

“I have to read it”, Leia thinks and exhales heavily. Hux’s execution is a political statement and as such she has to be up to date on it especially if she is not going to watch it.

 

There is a unbidden thought about her son, who lies in a coma in this very building, a few rooms away from her. And than she waves it away. There will be a confrontation, when he wakes up, but not now, it can wait. But how will he react to the news of Hux’s death? Will this free him from darkness? Or make it worse?

 

She goes back to watching Hux’s last holovid. The reality around her dissolves and there is only her, no other sounds, and Hux’s beautiful, immaculate face and his voice, soft, and with a pleasant neo-imperial accent. It’s so different from the sharp and harsh voice he used in their last conversation. She floates between present and past. It is Darth Vader who emerges from the darkness of her memories. The characterictic artificial breathing, the black cape – moving in an unseen breeze, a flowing motion, smell of electricity and Leia’s deeply buried and unspoken pain: “Luke has vorgiven Vader, but I was not present to do the same. The Force didn’t give me the opportunity to do so.” There was no last meeting between father and daughter. In the last moments of his life Vader became Anakin for Luke, but he will always stay Vader for Leia.

 

Who will her son be when he wakes up? Kylo Ren, who have done unspeakable evil things or Ben Solo, her beloved child? Both bloodstained for all eternity.

 

Screams, the patter of many feet, people being in panic, voices full of rage, all of this in the distance...and than...Rey’s round face looking up close to Leia. She’s talking and gesturing wildly, but her voice is quieter than Hux’s and Vader’s. And then Leia hears it clearly.

 

“Ren woke up from his coma and you will never believe me, when I tell you, I have never seen and felt such power in all my life. Not darkness, not light either, and not grey inbetween them, but like a unleashed supernova, like the impact of an explosion and everything for Hux, everything released at the mere sight of him.” Rey is absolutely breathless.

 

“Where is my son now?”, asks Leia and the answer is clear before Rey opens her mouth to speak. Gone. On the run. He and Hux together. “Did they leave the planet?” Rey answers with a nod. “Pursue and bring them back!”, says Leia and her voice is that of the general and not the mother. Hard as durasteel and equally unforgiving...like Hux’s voice have been at the end. But some things simple have to be done.

 

It is much later, after they had to abandon the pursue for the time being, that she hears the whole story, narrated from the points of view of Rey, Poe, Finn and Luke. She is sitting utterly motionless while the story is told from different perspectives and through the force she sees the occurrencies enfolding around her in the most vivid and realistic pictures. “That’s how the force can work too”, thinks Leia smiling to herself. But the story itself is nothing funny or to smile upon.

 

Hux is dragged out, but he doesn’t go quietly, he struggles. Only faintly, but enough to show everyone watching, he is not frightened and above all, he is not going to die of his own accord, but because the Republic decided it this way. There are not a lot of watchers, only a few hundred people who got an exclusive invitation to watch the spectacle. The press is also here.

 

The executioner is waiting right beside the stake. They put Hux before it, back to his fiery destiny, facing the crowd. And how they clamor and rage against him! But still, some are touched deeply by the sight of him, his proudness and the beauty of his face and slender body. Black looks good on him, even if it’s a uniform of the hated First Order.

 

He is standing very straight, head held high. Not a frightened victim for the flames, but the proud Grand Marshal of the First Order. How much does it costs him? This hiding of emotions.

 

Death through immolation is not an easy or a fast one. The court agreed mutual not to make it easy for Hux, to show mercy of any kind, to make the flames burn and consume him faster, or to allow him to lose consciousness and not to feel the pain that comes with burning. He is to experience it fully aware and pay for his crimes and burn so long until only ashes remain. Hosnian Prime was annihilated in this manner. Red light, impact, heat, flames, destruction, ashes.

 

The executioner begins to read Hux’s sentence. It’s 15 Minutes only to finish all of his crimes against the galaxy and humanity. For Hux it’s a small eternity in itself, he only purses his lips, no remorse. A quarter of an hour before his end begins and he stops existing.

 

He has no last words. Everything is said and everything leading to this moment is and was because, and for, Ren. A political dabate with the plebs is not possible and doesn’t make sense anymore. In this war everyone believes to be right. Ideologies and convictions take no prisoners. This is a truth Hux and Leia both know all too well.

 

They bind Hux to the stake. He climbed it with light and steady movements, graceful. Deep in the hearts of the crowd a treacherous thought: “He’s so beautiful, so young, it’s really a pity to kill him and in such a cruel way, were he one of us, it wouldn’t come this far...really a pity.” But they are raging on the outside.

 

And than everything is slowly going quiet. Hux is very calm and composed, he looks to the sky. The executioner ignites the stake. And while the flames flare up and go higher and higher the events are getting in motion and Kylo Ren arrives on the scene. He comes running. There is no red ignited lightsaber, no dark clothes, no black mask – only a young man with dark hair, a too big nose and moles on his face. But his eyes are burning bright. And at first he looks at the crowd.

 

It’s in this moment, that the storytellers get in motion: Luke is first to react, Rey follows him immediately, Finn and Poe and a few soldiers are not far behind. But all of them are of no interest to Ren and he turns away. He looks Hux in the eyes. Hux who feels the fire on his legs and tries not to scream or make a face, because he will not give the crowd the satisfaction of seeing him in pain. Proud to the last.

 

They look each other in the eyes and everything around them is standing still. It’s for a small moment as if the galaxy stopped spinning and breathing and than...an explosion in the force itself. Like an atomic blast which begins and is fueled through Ren’s and Hux’s connection, it spreads all around them, and through the gathered people. It extinguishes the flames and renders Luke, Rey and everyone else immobile.

 

Ren didn’t even make a single movement. His hand is not streched out in the typical gesture. It’s not like a sleight of hand, nothing to show off. Not a controlled and brutal force choke like Vader would admonish it, but pure energy. Dark and light in absolute and perfekt unity, its origins in the look between Ren and Hux, between Kylo and Armitage Elan, son of a hero of the rebellion and son of a kitchen maid, long awaited and unwillingly adopted, between raw and unbound energy, and cold, logic, discipline and ruthlessness. And the force is laughing full of joy, because this is how she wants to be. Not devided between good and evil, no rules, but pure emotion, flowing, reacting, no boundaries. In these two – Ren and Hux – she is exactly that.

 

Hux is free of his chains and he descends slowly from the stake, like a king from his throne, looking at Ren. His outstreched left is in Ren’s equally outstreched  right hand, they look each other in the eyes, blind to everything around them, as if the galaxy ceased to exist. Only both of them are here. The force is all around them, it’s vibrating, it’s flying around their heads like a bird and running around their legs like a dog and it’s beating in unison in their hearts.

 

And Ren says only: “Let’s go.”

 

And this is exactly what they do. They leave the place of execution running and take the first garbage ship they see. They leave the planet behind and only now, while they go into lightspeed, Ren‘s grasp of the storytellers and the crowd stops and they are able to move again.

 

It’s years later and Luke is still a tiniest little bit feeling guilty while commenting what happened when the Republic tried to execute General Hux. He is feeling guilty and on the other side proud, because his padawan Ben and at the same time his creation in darkness – Kylo Ren – was at the end the Chosen One, the most powerful force user of all, and the force was – unleashed through a look into Hux’s bright and clear eyes - for a few precious moments in time in a perfect balance.

 

To these days the story of this spectacular escape is told in every corner of the galaxy. However, there is one detail, that doesn’t change, it always stays the same and is told by every storyteller, whoever he or she may be and regardless of gender, species, political affiliation and it says: Kylo Ren had the possibility to be redeemed, to be forgiven, to turn back to the light and all of this was meaningless to him because of his love for one Armitage Elan Hux.

 

The political stage is not a fairy tale and not a story about love.

 

Hux vanishes together with Ren in the depths of the Outer Rim. Hux is a wise and cunning man and it was long before Snoke’s death that he deposited money on a few accounts on various planets. Nothing that could be traced back to the planet he and his consort found refuge on. And it’s not a lot of money, but it helps and they don’t have to work hard and are not hungry.

 

And so they take nameless ship after nameless ship on their escape and not even the best pilot of the rebellion can follow them. The traces cannot be followed, they went into hyperspace many times and no one even knows if they made it and are still alive or if they are already part of legends.

 

Even if it seems so at the beginning, it is not the New Republic, that wins this galactic civil war. The First Order is not defeated. It’s almost 10 years later and a wiser Kylo Ren comes back from the Outer Rim and together with his consort the Grand Marshal Hux, he becomes Supreme Leader a second time and is welcomed by the remaining First Order with open arms.

 

There are no real winners in a war and at the end of it all stands a meeting to sign a peace treaty. Both opponents are now nothing more than political parties. The strongest two in the galaxy. They meet on Coruscant, in a beautiful room, it’s walls mirror-lined. Supreme Leader Ren, Grand Marshal Armitage Elan Hux, General Phasma and their respective generals and admirals, and on the other side a white haired Leia, her brother Luke, Rey - the Jedi master, Finn and his husband Poe Dameron and their people.

 

There is a balance in Ren that was not there before. He is still Kylo Ren, he kept this chosen name, but he’s not a user of the dark side of the force. Not anymore. Or rather...it’s grey, flowing. He seems to be happy, Leia can see this very clearly, but he is very guarded around her.

 

It is the second meeting to discuss the treaty.

 

There is a little girl, maybe 4 years old. She has Ben’s dark hair and the beautiful blue-green eyes like Hux. Leia heard rumours about this infant. About the force and a biologicaly impossible child and yet...here it is and right at this moment it’s running around the table they all sit at and screaming in delight as a flustered Dopheld Mitaka tries to catch her. She’s very loud.

 

Before her inner eyes Leia sees Vader, no – it’s Anakin. Clad in black armour, but no helm on his head. He is looking at her and smiling, eyes blue and hair moving in an unseen breeze. She looks at Hux, who carried this child, her granddaughter, to term and risked his life in the process. A new possibility. A balance restored.

Hux stands up and takes his daughter in his arms. An exchange of sweet kisses follows, the child giggles happily.

 

Hux turns. “Do you know who this is, sweetest?” He looks at Leia.

 

“Yes, that’s grandma you told me about.”

 

Before Leia can ask to hold her, Ren comes over, his child gets a kiss and than he gives Hux a very chaste one too, while holding Hux’s right hand. Such a small gesture. The force is vibrating around the three of them.

 

What is good without evil? Light without darkness? They cannot exist one without the other, they are both the opposite sides of the Force. There is only balance when both exist. And the force loves it when everything is in balance.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos are for an author like tasty and sweet little cookies, but comments are like oxygen and new blood flowing in the veins of the author’s creativity. So please give me a kudos or two, and write comments without end in english, german or polish...or even russian, if you want to. I will try to answer each and every one of them. I have probably made a lot of mistakes when I translated this fic from german into english. And of course every translation makes a story into something else as it was originally composed. The main idea is the same in the german and english version, but as the translation progressed, I was adding a few little things to the english one. And it’s the “better” version of my story.
> 
> “They meet on Coruscant, in a beautiful room, it’s walls mirror-lined.” – This peace treaty and the room where it is signed has a historical reference. Does anyone of you know which it is?


End file.
